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It seems like a new Android tablet hits the FCC every day, and that pace isn’t going to slow down any time soon. If anything, it’s going to accelerate as traditional media companies look to tablets as a way to deliver more modern, immersive experiences to their customers.

We’ve already seen plans from the Philadelphia Media Network to introduce an Android tablet that will be offered to customers subscribing to the digital editions of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News. Now it appears as though one of the largest media companies in the U.S. — the Chicago-based Tribune Company — is going to follow suit.

Tribune owns and operates several marquee newspapers, including the Chicago Sun, Los Angeles Times, and the Baltimore Sun, as well as WGN, two dozen local television stations, and several web properties like Cars.com and Careerbuilder. Sources say that Tribune is looking to Samsung and its considerable experience with Android devices to deliver the tablet, which it would offer to subscribers either for free or at a heavily subsidized price. There’s also speculation that a carrier bundle could be in the mix as well, should the tablets include 3G connectivity.

Tribune already offers free mobile apps for iOS and Android, as well as the slick tile-based Mosaic app for Windows 7 tablets. The company is taking its time to make sure the Android tablet measures up to expectations, though not everyone is as optimistic as CEO Eddy Hartenstein about whether it will be a success. Advertising has proved to be a bit of a sticky wicket so far for digital content apps, but as CNN points out it’s not getting any cheaper to produce a newspaper, either, making this as good a time as any for a media company to try its hand at subsidized tablets.

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Anonymous

Seems to be throwing good money, after bad money.

We are in an entirely new age. People want their news and articles for free; they want them on the internet, when they are convenient. So, the demand for print is dropping – quickly. And the demand for subscription newspapers and magazines is quickly falling away as well.